Finding Me (29 page)

“What all what was about?” His father was the picture of innocence. Yeah, right, like Shane was naïve enough to buy that.

“You wanted me to drive you out here because you were all fired up about the changes. Anyone who knows you knows that there was a pending explosion that someone has dared to move your stuff. You were obviously agitated all the way here. I was trying to think of ways to keep Kelli from quitting after you unleashed on her. And then, out of nowhere, comes this kinder, gentler Kenmore who thanks her for making these changes and invites her to dinner.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I said I wanted to come see the changes. I liked them and said so. And she looks tired—and she’s bound to be tired after doing all that extra work—so I thought the least I owed her was dinner. Seems to me that it’s the right thing to do.”

“Right thing to do, maybe, but the thing you’d usually do? Not so much.” Shane glanced toward his father, whose face was turned toward the window as if he were enthralled with the landscape—the same landscape he’d passed every day for the past fifty years.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So you said.” Shane shook his head.

“How are the receipts looking, by the way? I know you’ve been double-checking her since I’ve been gone. What are you finding?”

“I’ve only been checking her for a little over a week.”

“And she’s only been working alone and doing the books for a little over a week. What are you finding?”

Shane shrugged. There was no choice but to admit the truth, as much as he knew his father was going to yuck it up. “She’s a better bookkeeper than you are.”

Pop snorted. “Not the greedy little money grabber you thought she was?”

As much as Shane wanted to keep arguing back with his father, he was on the losing side and knew it. Better to just cave in now and get it over with. “Okay, okay. I was apparently wrong about her. She seems honest. She’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen, and she’s done an amazing job getting the store spiffed up.” As he said the words, he realized just how true they were. “Grandma would be proud of her, I think.” He said it before he had time to think better of it. He looked toward his father, waiting for a reaction.

“Yes, I think she would.” He was silent for a moment. “Her mother would be proud of her, too, if she only knew what an amazing young woman she is.”

“Her mother was killed in a wreck a few months ago, right?”

“That was her stepmother.”

“Oh. Where’s her mother, then?”

Pop sighed and looked out the window. “I guess I couldn’t really say for sure.”

Yet another mystery about Kelli. Shane decided it was time to do some looking around on Google. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of that before.

I realized something tonight. It was so obvious and
right in front of my face I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.

Shane brought Kenmore by the store. I’m pretty sure he did it
because he thought his father would be mad about all the changes I’ve made. To tell the truth, I
thought he might be mad, too. He did seem to
have his feathers just a little ruffled at first, but then he calmed right down and seemed happy about it. Excited even. It felt so good to have his approval, and that’s when I realized the truth. I’ve
been doing all this, working so hard, because I want Kenmore’s approval, not just for amends.

It’s sort of like he is the closest thing to Dad that I have left, and he is a representative of the honest side of Dad, if such a side even existed. Somehow, though, I feel like if I can get Kenmore
to approve of me, then I’ve done enough. I
suppose I should call Denice and tell her all this so she can analyze exactly what it all means.

He invited me to dinner tonight. There is a weird vibe
with Shane. It’s like he half resents me and
is half glad that I am helping his father. He
doesn’t seem to know which way to lean, and I’m never sure from one minute to the next which side of the blade I’m going to get. Sometimes he’s flirtatious and quite charming, and other times
it’s like he’s mad that I’m in the universe. It’s just as well, because getting too
close to him would make it too easy to slip up and give myself away. He is suspicious of me—he’s just not certain why, which makes him dangerous.

Kenmore starts back to work next week, so I’m going to try to get the rest of the place spiffed up before then. I think I will be able
to leave at the end of the summer satisfied with my time here. Especially if I continue to help Beth, maybe get to know Alison a little better, and earn Kenmore’s approval. Those are the three things I am
shooting for.

Kelli had just finished her most recent journal entry when the doorbell rang. It was after nine—she couldn’t imagine who would stop by this late. She turned on the porch light and peeked through the window.

Miss Birdyshaw stood there, wearing her robe over a long nightgown. She had what appeared to be a book in her hand.

Kelli opened the door. “Hello, Miss Birdyshaw, is everything all right?”

“Right as rain, dear. It’s just that—remember when you first moved in here, I told you that you looked like someone I used to know? Well, I finally found her picture, and it looked so much like you I just had to come and show you.” She held up a white book with the words
Wildcats 1945
printed on the cover. “It’s right in here.” She flipped open the cover of what appeared to be a high school yearbook.

“Would you like to come inside? It might be more comfortable at the kitchen table.”

“No, thank you, dear. It’s past my bedtime, but I really wanted to show you this.” She flipped open the book to somewhere in the middle. At the top,
Senior Class
was printed in bold black letters
,
and each page held about eight photographs. Miss Birdyshaw pointed a shaky finger at one particular girl. “Mary Albright was her name. She was the most popular girl in our class. Such a beautiful girl, but then she moved away to North Carolina and I heard a rumor that she was in a terrible car accident and never looked quite the same.” She shook her head. “Such a tragedy.”

Kelli looked closely at the picture. Like all the other girls, Mary had mounds of curly bangs all around her face, and long hair down to her shoulders, neatly curled under. Even with those differences, there was no denying that, other than her hairstyle,
she looked almost identical to Kelli. “Wow, she does look a lot like me. I wonder if she has family in California.”

Miss Birdyshaw shrugged. “I have no idea, but you know who she is related to? Your friend Beth. It only occurred to me when I was looking through this old album. She was her grandmother’s older sister.”

Kelli’s mouth went dry. Great Aunt Mary? The one Beth had already commented about Kelli looking like?

Red flags were waving everywhere. If two people were already making a connection about who she looked like, how much more dangerous would things get?

34

T
hursday night, the lighted clock above the front door of the store glowed behind the words
Royal Crown Cola, so bubbly fresh
and told Kelli it was 6:55. Only five more minutes until closing. She was grateful for this, as the last couple of days had been draining.

Since no one was there, she figured she might as well get a head start. She walked over to the aisle that had all of what Kenmore called the “bents and dents.” This section was full of items that were dented, missing packaging, or had for some reason been deemed unsalable by the chain stores. The store got a delivery of new items once a week, and it was always a mystery as to what might arrive. Kelli looked at the shelf—porcelain dolls, a couple of lamps shaped like dolphins, a set of toddler dinnerware, stuffed animals, a ceramic Santa and his reindeer, a box of pencils. How could she even begin to go about organizing this in any sort of meaningful way? And wouldn’t it just have to be redone every week when the new shipment arrived?

The bell above the door jangled and Kelli looked over her shoulder to see who might be coming in for a last-minute item.
It was Shane. “Since when do you come in the front door?” She turned back to examining her shelf, knowing he would make his way to the back office, where he came every night to look over the books.

She was surprised when he walked over to stand beside her and asked, “What are you looking at?”

“This mishmash of junk. I’m trying to think of a logical way to organize it, which is hard enough. But considering that a new unknown shipment comes in every week or so, I’m trying to think of some sort of system that your dad can maintain when he’s back here on his own.”

Shane reached out and pressed the button on one of the monkeys, causing it to start banging its cymbals together. He flipped it off and smiled. “Why are you doing this?” He turned to look at her, not angry or accusing, simply questioning.

She straightened a doll that had fallen over. “Don’t you think it needs to be tidied up a bit?”

“Obviously, but that’s not what I meant, exactly. I mean, why are you putting in all this extra work? Dad hired you to help out, to stand behind the cash register, and just keep things running. Yet the approach you are taking here is as if you own the place and desperately need it to succeed. You’re putting in more hours than my dad does, and that’s saying something. Yet you’re barely making more than minimum wage, and to the best of my knowledge, you’re planning on leaving town as soon as the summer is over. There must be something you think you’ll get out of it.”

Kelli started to give him a flippant answer, but then stopped herself. Better to be vague, yet truthful. “For one thing, he needed some organizing, and I enjoy trying to think of ways to do things better. I was a business major in college but I’ve never really had a job where I could apply much of what I learned.”

“There’s got to be more to it.”

“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t really slept well since . . . well, for several months. So I try to work myself into enough exhaustion that I can fall asleep.”

He was still watching her, standing just a little closer than was comfortable. “Does it work?”

She shrugged, thinking of how often she jerked awake after a nightmare, or more likely, another slam of guilt over everything she’d recently discovered. “Sometimes.”

“What are you running from, Kelli?”

“Why do you always—”

He reached out his hand and put it on her arm. “I didn’t mean it in an accusing way. What I meant was, there is obviously something that is eating you up. Something that bothers you enough to keep you awake at night.”

“I think it’s called grief. Try losing your father and stepmother in a car wreck and see how well you sleep at night.”

“Is that really what it is?” His voice was soft, concerned. “Sometimes when I watch you, it’s like you’re listening to everyone around you talking, and you’re trying your best to understand what is going on. Like you’re trying to solve a great mystery in every single conversation.”